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SLAVERY IN THE 'UNITED STATES, 



SERMON 



DELIVERCD IN AMORY HALL, 



THANKSGIVING DAY 



NOVEMBER 21., 1842. 



BY JAMES FREEMAN CLARKE 



[printed bt friends for GRATOITOUS MSTRIBUTIO!*.] 



BOSTON: 
BENJAMIN II. GREENE. 
1843. 



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JOHN rUTWAM, PRINTER, 



SERMON. 



HEBREWS 13:3. 

" Remember them that are in bonds as boimd with them." 

I TAKE for the subject of my discourse to-day an im- 
portant matter, and one concerning which I have not 
before spoken to you, and one which I think should be 
sometimes treated, namely, 

" Slavery in the United States. Its evils. Its sin- 
fulness. Our duties concerning it." 

" But what has this to do with thanksgiving ?" you 
will say. Perhaps it may be a good way of thanking 
God for the mercies he has bestowed upon us, to re- 
member those to whom they are denied. We may thank 
God in various ways, and not merely by recounting 
his mercies, and glorifying his goodness to ourselves. 
" Herein is my Father glorified that ye bear much fruit. ''^ 
The most acceptable fruit to God, is love to our breth- 
ren ; the most genuine form which gratitude to God can 
take is a deep sympathy with all God's creatures ; the 
surest way of proving that we recognize thankfully the 
blessing of Christianity, is to show that we have received 
its spirit, — a spirit which binds us in brotherhood with 
all men, whether Jew or Samaritan, bond or free. 

" But what good will it do to consider this subject at 



all ?" you may say, " we can do nothing to remove the 
evils of slavery.'' I shall show, by and by, that we can 
do something ; but supposing that we cannot, still it may 
do us good to consider the subject. Will it do no good 
to learn to feel an interest in the sufferings of others who 
are at a distance from us ? Will it do no good to extend 
our sympathies beyond "the little limits of our own 
State and neighborhood"? * Will it do no good to look 
at great moral questions,— questions of right and wrong, 
toward which the intellect of the World is turning its 
attention ? And ought we to decide, before we have in- 
quired, whether we certainly can do no good ? whether 
we cer-tainly have no share in the sin ? It will not do, 
when we stand before the judgment-seat of Christ, to say 
that two millions of our fellow beings were under a hard 
yoke, under a system of government which we were sup- 
porting, under laws which we were enacting, and that we 
would not so much as ask whether we could do any 
thing to abate the evil,— would not so much as listen to 
any statement concerning it. Will it do to say then, that 
it was an exciting subject,— one which the majority of 
the respectable citizens disliked to hear mentioned,— that 
the agitation of it might disturb our political, ecclesiasti- 
cal, or social organizations ? 

I do not sympathize with those who are for intro- 
ducing this or the hke topics on all occasions. But on 
this day, in which the State has invited us to meet to- 
gether, it seems not inappropriate to speak of moral 
questions in which the State is largely concerned. I feel 
somewhat qualified to speak of it,— if a seven years' resi- 
dence in a slave-holding community can entitle one to 
claim some acquaintance with the facts,— if an intimate 
friendship with many slaveholders, and many obligations 

* Daniel Webster. 



and kindnesses received at their hands, can vindicate one 
from any prejudice against the men, — and if a New Eng- 
land love for freedom, breathed in with her air in child- 
hood, confirmed in youth, and I thank God never relin- 
quished amid other influences in maniiood, can prevent 
me from having imbibed an undue partiality for the system. 
Another motive has influenced me, also, in selecting this 
subject to-day. Speaking of Dr. Channing, a few weeks 
ago, I said that we ought to honor him as he would wish, 
by increasing our efforts in behalf of those truths and ob- 
jects for which he labored, so that as far as possible his 
absence might be supplied. As far as possible, for if all 
his numerous friends ; if all of us who, since his depar- 
ture, have felt it our duty publicly to express our respect 
and gratitude for his talents and virtues ; if all were to 
combine their efforts in behalf of any one of these ob- 
jects, I doubt if all together could do as much as he 
singly, so vast is the energy which belongs to tiic indi- 
vidual mind. But the cause of the slave is one of those 
objects, and I wish to do my part of that work, which 
he would have continued to do had he been continued 
among us. 

I. Let us look, then, in the first place, at the evils of 
the system of slavery. 

In speaking of these evils, I desire not to exaggerate 
them. They have sometimes, I think, been exagger- 
ated, — or at least the attention has been called so much 
to particular evils, that the mind has been filled full of 
them, and they have assumed a preposterous magnitude 
in the imagination. People have imagined that the slaves 
were being whipped and worked all the time, that they 
were dripping with blood, that their misery was constant 
and universal. Going to the South with these ideas in 
their heads, and perhaps staying there for months without 
2* 



6 

hearing the sound of a lash, — seeing the slaves very 
merry, and often having enough to eat and very little to 
do, they have come back from their trip to the Virginia 
Springs or the Mammoth cave, and said that slavery was 
not so very bad a system after all, — that the evils of it had 
been exaggerated. Yet the real evils of slavery never have 
been, and hardly can be exaggerated. Some circumstan- 
ces about it may be. There are many very kind masters, 
— very many. As far as I have seen, the fault was that 
the blacks had too little rather than too much to do. In 
the cities this is certainly the case, for they have too 
much time left for dissipation and bad company. There 
are also many pleasing features connected with the sys- 
tem. God has given alleviations and compensations to 
the worst institutions. There is often a strong attach- 
ment between the master and servant, very different from 
the mercenary relation which exists so much among our- 
selves between employer and domestic. The white 
child and black grow up together, — they play together 
on the floor when children, and as they grow up, the one 
feels the responsibility of a protector, and the other the 
affection which comes from respect and reliance. Re- 
liance and respect are native to the African character, 
and they make a relation tolerable to him, that to a differ- 
ently organized character, — the Indian, for example, — 
would be worse than death. These and other allevia- 
tions belong to this institution, and they ought to be men- 
tioned. Evils, sufficiently enormous remain, after all 
such abatements. 

1 . First the evils to the slave are very great. He is 
not always treated badly, but he is always liable to be so 
treated. He is entirely at the mercy of his master. If 
his master is passionate, arbitrary, despotical, avaricious, 
he is liable to be beaten, starved, over-worked, and sep- 
arated from his familv ; and whoever knows human nature, 



knows that such cases will not be rare Let me describe 
the character of two planters, whose estates adjoined. 
The first was one of the best men I ever knew, and one 
of the best friends I ever iiad. He owned some sixty- 
five slaves. He governed ihem as children, with mingled 
firmness and kindness. He visited them constantly in 
their houses, to be sure that they were always comforta- 
ble. They had neat houses, plenty to eat and to wear. 
They earned by extra work, for which he paid them, 
sometimes half a dollar, sometimes a dollar a day, which 
they spent as they chose. I have known him sit half the 
day holding in his lap the head of an old sick negro, who 
would not let any one but his old master come near him, 
nor take medicine but from his hand. This planter's 
wife and children were like him, indefatigable in their 
care of the servants. No servant was ever sold except 
for behavior which rendered it impossible for him to be 
retained. Once this happened, and then the whole house- 
hold was filled with gloom, as if one of the children had 
been taken away. Yet kind and wise as were this family 
in their management of their servants, they all confessed 
that the system was bad, and that while men were kept 
in slavery, it was impossible for them to be made really 
happy. 

Let us now look into the adjoining j)lantation. Here 
lived a man who had been a trader in slaves, — buying 
them in Virginia, and carrying them down the river to 
Mississippi. He had a favorite servant, named Daniel, 
whom he used to employ to persuade the slaves whom 
he wished to buy, that they would have more to eat and 
less to do where the trader was going to take them. So 
they would ask their masters to sell them, and the mas- 
ters, who would ofien refuse to sell their servants against 
their will, would be glad to get the advanced price which 
the trader ofTercd, if the men themselves were willing to 



8 

go. Daniel saved his master's life twice ; once from a 
gang of slaves whom he was taking chained South, who 
broke their chain in the night, and were about to kill him ; 
another time when the steamer Tennessee was wrecked 
in the Mississippi, and Daniel took off his master in a 
skiff. Yet after all this he sold Daniel too to a sugar- 
planter. This man left some twenty slaves, and before 
he died, being smitten with compunctions of conscience, 
left them their freedom, on condition that they sliould not 
be set free till each had been in his possession fifteen 
years. His executor, who was as bad a man as himself, 
contrived that of the whole only two actually became 
free. The rest were sold down the river before the 
time came. Who was to take the trouble to inquire into 
it ? One of them was to be free in a year, and was to 
be married to a free colored woman. He determined to 
escape or die, and was shot trying to get away at a wood- 
landing. 

I could tell you stories of barbarities which I knew of, 
which it would sicken you to hear, as it does me to think 
of them. But it would give you a false impression. It 
would be as if I should collect all the accounts of mur- 
ders and other atrocities committed in this city during ten 
years, and present them as a specimen of its character. 
Jt is enough to know, that when men are trusted with 
irresponsible power they will often abuse it. 

A worse evil to the slave than the cruelties ho some- 
times endures, is the moral degradation which results from 
his condition. Falsehood, theft, licentiousness, are the 
natural consequences of his situation. He steals, — why 
should he not .'' — he cannot, except occasionally, earn 
money ; why should not he steal it .'' He lies, — it is the 
natural weapon of weakness against tyrant strength. He 
goes to excess in eating and drinking and animal plea- 
sures, — for he has no access to any higher pleasures. 



9 

And a man cannot be an animal without sinking below an 
animal, — a brutal man is worse than a brute. An animal 
cannot be more savage or more greedy than the law of 
his nature allows. But there seems to be no limit to the 
degradation of a man. Slavery is the parent of vices ; it 
always has been, and always will be. Cowardice and 
cruelty, cunning and stupidity, abject submission and 
deadly vindictiveness; are now as they always have been, 
the fruits of slavery. 

I do not mean that there are no exceptions. There 
are pure, honest, and virtuous slaves. There are truly 
and tenderly pious slaves. I have sat in their churches, 
and been deeply touched by their devotion. God does 
not leave himself without a witness anywhere in the soul 
of man. I have observed with awe and joy the same 
evidences of a profound Christian experience in these 
downcast souls, trodden under feet of men, — the same 
experiences which we see described in the epistles of Paul, 
the confessions of Augustine, the journals of Wesley, 
Fenelon, and Fox. 

INIasters often can and do preserve their slaves from 
great immorality by careful superintendence, — but there is 
one evil so inherent in the system, that no care can ob- 
viate it. The slave's nature never grows. The slave is 
always a child. God has made Progress and Freedom 
inseparable. You are astonished, when you first go to 
the South, to hear a grey-headed black man called 6oj/, 
but there is a propriety, though unintended, in the term ; 
they ore boys always. What is it which turns the white 
child into a man, but the necessity of looking forward, of 
preparing noio for the future ? But the slave has no mo- 
tive to look forward. He has nothing to hope, nothing 
to fear beyond the present day. If he should be ever so 
industrious, diligent, skilful, and faithful, he would gain 
nothing by it, — he would only be worth so much more to 



10 

his master. If he should be ever so lazy, stupid, or un- 
faithful, he loses nothing by it. He must still be fed and 
clothed. His only ambition, then, is to do as little work 
as possible to-day, and to get as much rest, food and 
sleep as he can. Tomorrow may take care of itself. 

The system of slavery, then, is a soul-destroying sys- 
tem. Perhaps some of you have seen the di-avvings 
illlustrating one of Schiller's ballads, representing Apollo's 
horse Pegasus, sold to a farmer, and having had his wings 
tied together, and his spirit subdued by beating and starva- 
tion, at last he is yoked with an ox into a plough, and sinks 
exhausted on the ground. It is full of pathos, — but 
what a poor emblem of the human soul, when by means 
of slavery, its aspirations are checked, and it becomes a 
mere mechanical principle of life, informing a brute 
body. 

2. I have spoken of a few of the evils of the system of 
slavery to the slave himself. The evils to his master are, 
perhaps, nearly as great. This is admitted by intelligent 
slaveholders. It was admitted by Mr. Clay, when he 
said in a speech at Lexington, before he became the 
champion of the institution, — "that he considered the 
system as a curse to the master as well as a bitter wrong to 
the slave, and to be justified only by an urgent political ne- 
cessity." It is an evil to the slaveholder every way. It 
impoverishes him. Slave cultivation destroys the value 
of the soil, — manufactures cannot thrive where slavery 
exists, — the energy is taken out of the community by it. 
It depopulates a country. Kentucky has greater advan- 
tages than Ohio. It was settled fifteen years before her, 
— it is surrounded and cleft with navigable streams, — it 
lies under a warmer sun, — it is larger, and has as much 
or more good soil, — it is rich in minerals ; and yet the 
population of Ohio was about double that of Kentucky in 
1840. Slavery is a domestic evil. There is no com- 



11 

fort, no cleanliness, no imj)rovement with slaves in your 
family. It is a perpetual annoyance and vexation. So- 
ciety is poisoned in its roots by this system. The spirit, 
tone, and aim of society is incurably bad, wherever 
slavery is. There are noble exceptions to this, but they 
are exceptions. Public education is out of the question 
in slave States, — common schools cannot exist except in 
cities. It has been tried again and again, always unsuc- 
cessfully. 

With the bloody affrays which are constantly occurring 
in the slave States, we are all familiar. There no white 
man is ever punished for shooting or stabbing his enemy 
in the street. According to Southern law, to go up to 
a man in the high-w^ay, abuse him till he is provoked to 
make some violent reply, and then to draw a knife and 
cut him down, is self-defence. In the city where I lived, 
three Mississippi gentlemen, one a judge, attacked three 
unarmed mechanics, who had offended them, in a public 
bar-room, with dirks and bowie knives. Two of the 
mechanics were killed, one by the judge, in the following 
manner. The judge was entering the bar-room, and saw 
his brother struggling with an opponent. He drew his 
bowie knife, and flourishing it in the air, rushed across 
the room and thrust it in the back of a man who was pull- 
ing another away from the affray. The judge was tried, 
defended on the ground of self-defence by a distinguished 
member of Congress from Mississippi, and acquitted. 

From the speech of the prosecuting officer, an old and 
distinguished Kentuckian, I quote the following testi- 
mony to the different habits of the South and North.* 

" If you go into the Northern States, it is a rare thing 
if you can find a man in ten thousand with concealed 

♦ Speech of Ben Hardin at the trial of Wilkinson, &:c. 



12 

weapons on his person. Go South, to Arkansas or 
Mississippi, for example, and though you would be a 
peaceable man at the North, in these States you may 
arm yourself to the teeth, and track your steps in blood 
with impunity. I went down the river lately, and it was 
pointed out to me where the Black Hawk had blown up 
and killed her scores ; to another place where the Gen. 
Brown had blown up and killed her hundreds ; to one 
spot on the shore where two gentlemen blew out each 
other's brains with rifles ; to another where the widow 
somebody's overseer was butchered ; to another where 
the keeper of a wood-yard was shot for asking pay for his 
wood ; to another where an aged gentleman was stabbed 
for protecting his slave from cruel treatment. Great 
God ! cried I, at last, — take me back, take me back to 
where there is more law, if less money, — for I could not 
bear the horrid recital any longer, — when every jutting- 
point or retiring bend bore the landmark of assassination 
and irresponsible murder." 

This is the testimony of a distinguished and patriotic 
Southerner. 

The cause of this is obvious, — habits of dictation and 
violence, formed among slaves, cause these affrays among 
masters. 

The political evils of slavery form a distinct and im- 
portant part of the argument, — but I cannot stop to dwell 
on them. I refer you to the speeches of John Quincy 
Adams, that noble old man, who has stood up alone in 
manly opposition to the encroachments of slavery, and 
borne the tumultuous and furious denunciations of its 
champions, when no Northern man had the courage to 
take a stand by his side. " Unshaken, unseduced, unterri- 
fied," he stood like the mountain, round which cluster and 
darken the black clouds, and against whose summit they 
discharge fire and hail, but which emerges from the tu- 



13 

mult serene and calm, while the broken, bafiled ureailis 
of mist are driven down the wind. 1 cannot dwell on the 
dangers to the Union from the encroachments of slavery, 
but its machinations are untiring, its jealousy sleepless. It 
is still determined to annex Texas to the Union. It has 
occupied the President's ciiair, the Speaker's scat in the 
House, it insists on having a majority of judges of the 
Supreme Court, and, contrary to all law, on the last day 
of the last session it forced a bill through Congress, mak- 
ing the nation pay the expenses of those Americans who 
were taken prisoners by the Mexicans, in an expedition 
to Santa Fe.* 

II. Let us now examine the question of the sinfulness 
of slavery. 

There are two theories on this subject which I think 
extreme, — one, of the Abolitionists who demand imme- 
diate emancipation, — the other, of the South Carolina 
party of slaveholders. 

The first theory declares that to hold slaves, or to 
have anything to do with holding slaves, is always sinful, 
and to be repented of immediately, — that no slaveholder 
should be permitted to commune in our churches, and 
that we should come out and be separate from this un- 
clean thing as far as possible. They support this theory 
by the inconsistency of slavery with the rights of man 
and the spirit of the gospel. 

The other party, among whom, I am sorry to say, are 
to be found ministers of the gospel at the South and 
North, professors of moral philosophy in Southern col- 
leges, and distinguished citizens of the free States, de- 
clare slavery to be a system which is sanctioned by the 
Bible, has existed in all times, and is necessary to the 

* See J. Q. Adams's Speech, at Weymouth, to his constituents, 1842, 
2 



14 

progress of the world in freedom and happiness. They 
speak much of the patriarchs of the Old Testament, and 
of the fact that while slavery, in atrocious forms, existed 
in the times of Christ and his Apostles, neither Jesus nor 
his Apostles were abolitionists, or rebuked it, but instead 
of commanding the masters to emancipate their slaves, or 
the slaves to run away, told the masters to be just and 
kind, and the slaves to be obedient and faithful in the 
relation. 

The answer of the Abolitionists to this is not satisfac- 
tory, because they wish to prove too much, — they deny 
that slavery did exist under Mosaic institutions ; and 
they accuse their opponents of " torturing the pages of 
the blessed Bible."* 

Now the true doctrine, I think, is, that slavery as a 
system is thoroughly sinful and bad, — but it does not 
follow that every slaveholder commits sin in holding 
slaves. That the whole spirit of the gospel is opposed 
to slavery, and that the tendency of Christianity is to 
break every yoke, is perfectly plain. But the fact, which 
always remains a fact, that Jesus and his Apostles did 
not attempt violently to overthrow and uproot this institu- 
tion, did not denounce all slaveholders, and that while 
we have catalogues of sins which are to be repented and 
forsaken, slaveholding is not among them, shows that, under 
all circumstances, it is not sinful. This is also evident 
from fact. Here is a young man who inherits a hundred 
slaves from his father ; some are good, some bad ; some 
are industrious, some idle ; some young, some old, — 
shall he tell them they are free, and let them go ? Some 
could do well, but others not, — they are too old, or too 
idle, or too vicious, — they have been made so by slavery, 

♦ See Weld's " Bible Argument." 



15 

and it is the duty of the slaveholder to keep them and 
take care of them, till they can be prepared for freedom. 
But what shall we say of those who attempt to justify 
the system, and would have us believe, that because 
Jesus did not denounce it he approved of it, — that God 
ordained and Jesus approved a system that turns man 
into a brute, — degrades the soul, and makes it almost in- 
capable of progress, — a system, then, which allowed the 
master to crucify his slave, and throw him into a fish- 
pond, to be eaten by carp, for breaking a glass dish, — 
that Jesus, who taught that we are to love our breth- 
ren as ourselves, did not disapprove of this system, 
or think it sinful ? It was my hard lot, at the South, to 
hold a controversy in the newspapers with a man who 
held this doctrine. He maintained, also, that w^hat was 
not forbidden was commanded ; and that it was, there- 
fore, a Christian duty to hold slaves ; and that it was a 
covenant blessing and privilege, granted by God to the 
Jews, to have the power of beating their servants to 
death, provided they did not die immediately.* 

III. I must now say something on the third point, — 
What are our duties in relation to slavery 9 

And here I must notice some objections made by 
those who think we hav€ no duties in the premises. 

Objection 1. " We ought to let the xchole matter 
alone. We have nothing to do with it. It is a Southern 
matter, and should be left exclusively to the South.''^ 

I think we have a good deal to do with it. We sup- 
port slavery directly in the District of Columbia, and in- 
directly throughout the Union. Our Congress, com- 
posed in part of those whom we elect, and who are our 

* Dr. J. N. McDowell's Letters to J. F. Clarke, m the St. Lonia 
Bulletb. 



16 

representatives, has power to make all laws for the Dis- 
trict of Columbia. Novv the North should insist, either 
that slavery should be done away with there, or that the 
seat of government should be removed to some State 
where slavery does not exist. I am disposed to think 
that Congress would do wrong in doing away with slavery 
in the District without the consent of the inhabitants. 
But it has a right to say to them, — " Consent to eman- 
cipate, or we leave you." And if this alternative 
were proposed, there is little doubt but that they would 
consent. 

We have a good deal to do with slavery. We sup- 
port it indirectly throughout the South. It is the 
strength of the Union which supports slavery, not the 
strength of the South. It is the power of the free States 
which upholds this system. If the Union between the 
free and slave States were dissolved, slavery could not 
last ten years. This is a thesis easy to prove, though I 
have no room here to argue it. 

Again, by the clause in the Constitution which declares 
that the slave, escaping North, shall be given up to his 
Southern master, Massachusetts becomes a hunting- 
ground for the South. She is not wholly a free State, — 
not so free as Canada. The soil of Canada cannot tol- 
erate the presence of a slave ; the soil of New England 
can. The Southern bondman, flying North, and enter- 
ing the limits of New England, is still a bondman. When 
he has passed through New England and crossed the 
Canada boundary, he has ceased to be a slave. His 
chains have fallen off from him. Slavery, then, can 
and does exist on our soil. So long as this compact ex- 
ists let us not nullify it. I abhor nullification under all 
its forms. Were we indeed to pass laws forbidding an 
escaped slave to be given up, we should no more nullify 
the Constitution than several Southern States have done. 



in passing laws by which a free colored citizen of the 
North, entering their borders, becomes thereby liable to 
be imprisoned and to be sold into perpetual slavery.* 
For the same section and article which requires bond- 
men to be given up to their owners, declares that " the 
citizens of each State shall be entitled to all privileges 
and immunities of citizens in the several States. "f Nev- 
ertheless, we are not to infringe the Constitution because 
the South infringes it. But have we nothing to do with 
slavery, while these laws remain .'' We ought not to cease 
our efforts, wisely and earnestly conducted, for the aboli- 
tion of slavery, till it can be said of New England, as it 
could long ago be said of Old England, that a slave's foot 
cannot tread her soil, a slave's breath taint her air. " No 
matter in what language his doom may have been pro- 
nounced, no matter what complexion incompalible with 
freedom, an Indian or African sun may have burned 
upon him. The moment his foot touches the sacred 
soil of Britain, the altar and the god sink together in the 
dust. His soul walks abroad in her original majesty. 
His body swells beyond the reach of the chains which 
fall from around him, and he stands redeemed, regenera- 
ted, and disenthralled by the irresistible spirit of Univer- 
sal Emancipation.":]: 

But we ought to take higher ground. Have we noth- 
ing to do with slavery .-' Are we, then. Christians .'' Is 
not our neighbor the suffering man, at the pole or be- 
neath the equator .'' Ought we not to love him as our- 
selves. Shall Mason and Dixon's line be an insurmount- 
able barrier to our Christian sympathies .'' Shall we send 
missionaries to Africa or India, and help to Poland and 

* Laws of Soath Carolina and Louisiana; perhaps others, 
t Constitution of the United States, Art. IV, sect. 2. 
t Curran. 

2* 



18 

Greece, and think nothing of the poor slave in Georgia 
and Missouri ? Or is political freedom so much more 
valuable a possession than personal, that it becomes a 
duty to interfere on behalf of a nation which is taxed 
without being represented, but criminal to interfere on 
behalf of a man, who is made a chattel, and despoiled of 
all his rights ? 

Objection 2. " But you can do nothing. The 
J^orth cannot do anything for the slave. We cannot ap- 
proach him. And if we could, the system is too deeply 
rooted, and too extensive to be overthroivn by human 
efforts. We must leave it to the Providence of God.'''' 

The system of slavery is a deep-rooted and widely- 
spread system, but if this is an argument for not opposing 
it, it is one which would have prevented every great 
reform which has ever taken place from being attempted. 
The British slave trade was a deeply-rooted and wide- 
spread system, and resisted for years the efforts of those 
who contended against it. But it was at last overthrown. 
The Roman Catholic church was wide spread and deeply 
rooted when Luther seceded from it. But the Reforma- 
tion has shorn it of its strength. Once all Europe held 
slaves ; but now slavery is almost extinct on its soil. 
Paganism and Judaism were deeply-rooted and wide- 
spread systems when the Apostles began to preach a 
Master who had been publicly executed by a felon's 
death. But in less than three hundred years a Christian 
emperor sat on the throne of the world. 

When we consider, slavery as a whole, and think that 
there are two millions and a half of slaves, valued at 
twelve hundred millions of dollars, in the United States, 
and that twelve states are slaveholding, the evil seems 
very great, and it seems almost in vain to attempt oppo- 
sing it. But when we look at it in detail, many circum- 



19 

stances appear of an encouraging nature. Some of thenn 
are as follows. 

1. By accurate calculations it apjicars that there are 
not more than 200,000 slaveholders in the United States. 
That is, not more than 1 in 12 of the free inhabitants of 
the slave states is a slaveholder. In some states not 
more than one in three of the legal voters is a slaveholder. 
Non-slaveholders in the South, must, from their very po- 
sition, be opposed to slavery. Slavery constitutes an 
aristocracy from which they are excluded. Farmers or 
mechanics, who do not own slaves, are thus the natural 
enemies of the system. This is particularly the case 
wherever slaves are taught the mechanic arts, and thus 
come in competition with the free laborers. From these 
causes there is a strong under current of opposition to the 
system throughout the South. It is seldom heard of, be- 
cause the organs of expression are in the hands of the 
slaveholders. These are rich, have leisure, are united 
by a common interest, and can devote themselves to 
strengthening their position, and opposing all utterance of 
anti-slavery sentiments. But their real weakness is bet- 
ter understood at the South, than it is here. 

2. There are many regions of the South where sla- 
very hardly exists. Throughout the extensive mountain 
region, which stretches through the middle of Virginia, * 
through North and South Carolina, and into Georgia, 
there arc comparatively few slaves. The mountains are 
always the home of freedom. East Tennessee has so few 
slaves, that attempts have been made to constitute a free 
state out of her. 

3. The last census shows that slavery is steadily di- 
minishing in the Northern slave states, that is, in Mary- 



20 

Missouri. 



land, Virginia, Kentucky, North Carolina and Misso 
The natural course of things is driving slavery South 

4 There is every probability that in a few years 
Kentucky, Maryland and Virginia will emancipate their 
slaves and secede from the ranks of slavery. I have 
heard the most distinguished men in Kentucky say that 
when a convention is called in that state to alter the con- 
stitution, slavery is gone. I have heard them say tha^ 
when that time comes they will take the stump through 
the state to argue against the system. Of this d.sposU.on 
in Kentucky the South Carolina school, who contend for 
the perpetuity of slavery, are well aware, and have re- 
peatedly endeavored to bend the state to Southern mter- 
ests This was undoubtedly one object of the Charles- 
ton and Ohio railroad, which failed; of the railroad Bank, 
which was to be established in Kentucky, w.tli directors 
in South Carohna, and which could not obtain a charter 
from the Kentucky legislature, notwithstanding the most 
strenuous efforts. This was the object of t- desperate 
struggle made a year or two since to mduce the Kentucky 
legislature to repeal the law prohibiting the importation of 
slaves for sale into the state, a struggle which was also 
unsuccessful, and during which, speeches were made and 
pamphlets pubhshedby T. F. Marshall, C-- ^L Ch^^ 
Robert I. Breckenridge and others, which breathed a 
Northern spirit of freedom. 

These, and other facts, show that there are natural 
causes at work, under Providence, which indicate very 
certainly that slavery in the United States must terminate 
sooner or later. But they do not authorize us to say 
that its termination may be left to be brought about by 
these influences, and that therefore we need do nothing 
For there will always be a determined opposition made 
to every movement towards emancipation in the South, 



21 

and to resist this, moral convictions are needed, and the 
influence of a sound public opinion at the North. Much 
can, and must be done by the friends of freedom every- 
where to pour light into the intricacies of this subject, 
and to awaken the moral sentiment concerning it. And 
however we may differ from some of the sentiments and 
some parts of the course, pursued by abolitionists, they 
deserve the credit of having been the first effectually to 
call the public mind to the earnest consideration of this 
great subject. 

Objection 3. ^'^ But the blacks cannot take care of 
themselves.''^ 

Many of them cannot, and such ought not to be imme- 
diately emancipated. But that the majority cannot, or 
that a very large minority cannot, is not correct. The 
following facts are evidence enough of this. In all the 
southern cities, there are a large proportion of slaves who 
hire their own time from their masters, i. e. hire themselves, 
and pay so much a week. The women pay from one to 
two dollars a week, which they earn by washing, and in 
other ways ; the men from two to three dollars a week, 
which they earn by driving carriages, and drays, and like 
employments. Now if a slave can support himself, when 
he has to pay so much to his master, (for they support 
themselves beside), it is clear that he can support himself 
where he has not to pay this. Nor are these chosen or 
selected servants, but merely those whose masters happen 
to live in the city. 

Objection 4. '■'■ They do not wish to be free. They 
are very happy as they are.'" 

So they are, sometimes. Undoubtedly they are often 
satisfied with their lot. But not generally. I have gen- 
erally found, on conversing with them, a strong desire for 



freedom deeply seated in their breasts. If they do not 
desire freedom, why are the southern newspapers con- 
stantly filled with advertisements of runaway negroes, and 
constantly decorated with a series of embellishments rep- 
resenting a black man, with a bundle on his shoulder, 
running ? Wliy these rigorous laws against every ship 
and captain who shall assist a -slave in escaping ? Why 
all this jealousy of the abolitionists ? The slaves do ar- 
dently desire freedom — they would not be men did they 
not. They have, to b^ sure, vague ideas of what it is. 
Many are disappointed with it when they get it. But on 
the whole they would be much happier as freemen than 
they can be as slaves. They would have to work harder 
and fare more poorly perhaps than they do now ; but 
what then ? they would be working for themselves and for 
their children, and hope would lighten their toil, and a 
sense of independence strengthen them in their labor. 

Objection 5. " But they are not intended to be 
free. They are an inferior race^ 

I shall not soon forget the answer once made to this 
suggestion by a Kentuckian. I was once visited, when I 
resided in Louisville, by a young man from Boston who 
had been bred up here under highly conservative influ- 
ences, and who thought slavery an excellent institution, 
and all kinds of anti-slavery movements terrible fanati- 
cisms. We took a ride together In the country. The 
first place where we stopped, he entered into conversation 
with the lady of the house, a woman of remarkable talents, 
and possessing the fluency and readiness native to Ken- 
tuckians. Being among slaveholders my friend thought 
it a good time to bring out his pro-slavery sentiments. 
But he was soon interrupted: "We cannot agree with 
you," said the lady ; "it will not do for you to attempt 
to persuade us of the advantages of slavery. Our family 



on both sides are all abolitionists. Anti-slavery senti- 
ments are not new with the M.'s and B.'s." After this 
we rode on and came to the farm of the gentleman of 
whom I spoke before. My Boston friend thought he 
could not be so unlucky a second time, especially as he 
saw clusters of negro houses as we rode up the long 
avenue which led to the house. So in conversation he 
presently began to say that "slavery was not so bad a 
thing as it was represented at the North." " Perhaps 
not," replied the slaveholder, "but we find it bad 
enough.''^ "But at any rate," continued the Northern- 
er, " the blacks are not fit to be free. They have not 
intelligence enough to bear freedom. They are an infe- 
rior race." "My friend," replied the Kcntuckian, "I 
could select from the men on my farm, sevcii, each of 
whom would do to go to the Kentucky legislature, and 
each of them has as much sense and knowledge as the 
majority of the representatives there." 

I felt ashamed of my Massachusetts friend, and proud 
of my Kentucky friend. For it is perhaps natural, cer- 
tainly excusable, for one born at the South to be blind 
to the evils of the system, though it is noble when he 
rises above the influences of his situation, and is willing to 
acknowledge them. But it always seemed to me the 
part of a traitor, for a Northerner to become their apolo- 
gist. I can excuse a Southerner who defends this sys- 
tem, though I reverence and love him if he has moral 
strength enough to see its evils, and the moral courage to 
confess its injustice. But false in heart, and mean in 
soul must be the man, who, having trod in childhood and 
youth the free soil of the North, afterward becomes at 
the South the defender of slavery. 

It is a mistake to speak of the African as an infe- 
rior race to the Caucasian. It is doubtless different 
from this, just as this is also different from the Malay, 



24 

the Indian, the Mongolian. There are many varieties iu 
the human family. The Englishman, Welshman, Scotch- 
man and Irishman are organically different — so are the 
Pawnee, the Mandan and the Winnebago Indians. But 
it will not do to say now that the African is inferior — he 
never has been tried. In some faculties he probably is 
inferior — in others probably superior. The colored man 
has not so much invention as the white, but more imita- 
tion. He has not so much of the reflective, but more of 
the perceptive powers. The black child will learn to 
read and write as fast or faster than the white child, having 
equal advantages. The blacks have not the indomitable 
perseverance and will, which make the Caucasian, at 
least the Saxon portion of it, masters wherever they 
go — but they have a native courtesy, a civility like that 
from which the word " gentleman" has its etymological 
meaning, and a capacity for the highest refinement of 
character. More than all, they have almost universally, a 
strong religious tendency, and that strength of attachment 
which is capable of any kind of self-denial, and self-sac- 
rifice. Is this an inferior race — so inferior as to be only 
fit for chains ? 

What then is our duty ? We ought to remember the 
bond as bound with them. In our thoughts and our 
prayers remember them. We ought to make our legis- 
lators and those who wish for office remember them. 
We ought to spread the conviction that public men, if 
they would gain the favor of the community, must rise 
above mere party questions, and look at the moral bear- 
ings and influences of measures. We should make 
those whom we send to Congress feel that if they suffer 
the encroachments of slave power, that if they do not 
manfully uphold the rights of the North, we shall hold 
them faithless and recreant, unworthy to have been born 
on the hills of New England. We ought to watch them. 



25 

We leave these matters too much to a few professed 
party politicians. 

What is needed more than anything else now, on this, 
and many other subjects, is a class o[ independent men — 
who will not go all lengths with any party — who will 
govern themselves by conscience — who will not join the 
abolitionists in their denunciations and their violence, nor 
join the South in their defence of slavery — who can be 
temperate without being indifferent — who can be mod- 
erate and zealous also — who can make themselves felt as a 
third power, holding the balance between violent pai'ties, 
and compelling both to greater moderation and justice. 
We can each of us, in our own private and humble sphere, 
inform ourselves on this and the like great questions, en- 
deavor to inform others, and so create by degrees that 
mighty power, — a sound and just public opinion, before 
which every abuse must at last go down. We can be 
willing to hear, to judge, to think. We can avoid the 
fanaticism of the North and of the South. We can op- 
pose to the violence and passion of southern blood, the 
sterner and more awful face of conscience. We can re- 
buke every man who truckles or bows to slavery, or who 
voluntarily offers himself as its instrument — rebuke him 
by refusing him our countenance or support as long as he 
shows this disposition. Finally, feeling that the Lord 
reigns, and that no evil can triumph forever, we can 
calmly look to him for aid, and rely on his Providence, 
yet doing ourselves also, whatever our hand finds to do — 
working while the day lasts, knowing that the night Com- 
eth when no man can work. 



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